Financial DLC

Banking and Finance DLC for Capitalism Lab
WilliamMGary
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Financial DLC

Post by WilliamMGary »

I randomly come up with ideas for this DLC so I'm going to just post the ideas kinda no details to see if we can get a number of worthwhile features development as a DLC

-Ability to buy, sell and trade bonds
-Ability to transfer assets between subsidiaries (companies in real life do this all time)
-The ability to take companies private after they have become public
-Ability to setup and run banks; issue and approved loans;
-Ability to do tender offers (like seriously please)
-Ability to set pay for performance metrics on executives (i.e. stock options)
-Ability to adjust salary of executives and subsidiary executives
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eleaza
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Re: Financial DLC

Post by eleaza »

Perhaps we should throw in the labor market mechanics as well. After all it's the consumer's ability to purchase goods and spending make the money flow. Perhaps even stock options or bonuses for employees, not just executives.
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WilliamMGary
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Re: Financial DLC

Post by WilliamMGary »

eleaza wrote:Perhaps we should throw in the labor market mechanics as well. After all it's the consumer's ability to purchase goods and spending make the money flow. Perhaps even stock options or bonuses for employees, not just executives.
I like.
towerbooks
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Re: Financial DLC

Post by towerbooks »

+1

Would be nice to get a deeper financial system. I would like to be running a financial institution.
Arcnor
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Re: Financial DLC

Post by Arcnor »

Support 100% Something I've wanted in the game for a very long time.

I've always wanted to run my own bank and give me something to do with the capital that I produce in the game.
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David
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Re: Financial DLC

Post by David »

There are several challenges for designing a banking system for a game.

One of the challenges is how to make such a boring subject fun. The main activities of a retail bank are to give out loans and profit from the interest differences between the loans and the interest payments to customers with deposits in the bank. From a gameplay perspective, it merely involves setting the loan interest rates and the saving interest rates within the range allowed by the central bank. It is questionable if most users will view such activities as being fun.

If any of you have any ideas about how to make the banking system actually fun in the game, please feel free to suggest.
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Re: Financial DLC

Post by acf1 »

David wrote:There are several challenges for designing a banking system for a game.

One of the challenges is how to make such a boring subject fun. The main activities of a retail bank are to give out loans and profit from the interest differences between the loans and the interest payments to customers with deposits in the bank. From a gameplay perspective, it merely involves setting the loan interest rates and the saving interest rates within the range allowed by the central bank. It is questionable if most users will view such activities as being fun.

If any of you have any ideas about how to make the banking system actually fun in the game, please feel free to suggest.
One way, for retail banking, it would be for random pop up notices showing up loan applications that you would have to review weekly. Each application will have a reason/investment which will determine the underlying risk (prob. of success). The fictitious applicant will have a credit score that will add to the risk. The economic climate (maybe under Econ DLC) will also determine future payments/default rate and affect the interest rate. You would compete with other banks on interest rate to get more applications. You would have to shuffle which applications to approve in order to make money or lose money if the applicant defaults. You would have to keep certain bank rating to make sure people use your bank to save money, and that would be the money available to loan.

For investment banking, you can create investment products like mutual fund where you earn maintenance fees. To grow the fund, you'll have to invest the stock market. Your rate of return will add to investors wanting to join in, growing your fee income.
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David
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Re: Financial DLC

Post by David »

One way, for retail banking, it would be for random pop up notices showing up loan applications that you would have to review weekly. Each application will have a reason/investment which will determine the underlying risk (prob. of success). The fictitious applicant will have a credit score that will add to the risk. The economic climate (maybe under Econ DLC) will also determine future payments/default rate and affect the interest rate. You would compete with other banks on interest rate to get more applications. You would have to shuffle which applications to approve in order to make money or lose money if the applicant defaults. You would have to keep certain bank rating to make sure people use your bank to save money, and that would be the money available to loan.
My concern is that some users will find this tedious after the novelty of this new feature wears off, due to its repetitive nature that requires constant user interactions.
For investment banking, you can create investment products like mutual fund where you earn maintenance fees. To grow the fund, you'll have to invest the stock market. Your rate of return will add to investors wanting to join in, growing your fee income.
But from my own experience, I can make way more money by trading stock on my own than running a mutual fund and collecting annual fees. Also it has been proven that the majority of mutual funds fail to beat the stock indexes, so it seems that the success of a mutual fund can be attributed more to luck than skills. From this viewpoint, it may not be much fun running a mutual fund in the game.

Having this said, we do welcome all kinds of suggestions here including yours. In fact, we would like to consider user suggestions for the next DLC project after the completion of the Digital Age DLC. So feel free to continue to post your ideas. For the good ones, we will create polls to seek feedback of other users and hopefully some of them will eventually get implemented in a new DLC.
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eleaza
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Re: Financial DLC

Post by eleaza »

I feel this is not just about how much fun or interesting of a game mechanics, but how these new game plays can be an integral part of the existing game. This is a DLC afterall, not a completely new game. There are tons of new game mechanics that would work, but for financial DLC it has to feel like part of the game itself.

So the question will be why would we need financial mechanics in the first place? It's not just about banks and loans. One of the reason I read is players complaining about no where to invest their capital in the late game, or lack of option to invest capital in the early game. Others are about the lack of options to leverage higher with their initial fund. And with CES DLC that finally introduces city bonds, there certainly has room to expand fairly simply financial mechanics to a more complex integral financial market. And it certainly shouldn't be just new ways of making money, but has to have its own theme and actual functions.

Perhaps a better central theme should be well considered and build upon than pill up different components. I feel one of the possible central theme could be complete the missing financial cycle between households and companies, we have the core game dealing with money flowing from households to companies, we have CES DLC to deal with government money flow from household and companies, now the next part should be how capital and money flow back from companies to households, companies to companies, and how goods, labours, services, exchange the other way around.

Or on the other hand, we could dive further into the detail financial institutions. Like credit agencies, they are integral part of "Capitalism" since the birth of modern banking, cash or "coins" at that time, limited capital flow, hence credits and checks, as well as the original form of bonds and notes are "invented" to loosen limited physical coinage and we start to move on to credit currency. And in the late 20th century we are moving on to Securitization, and other forms of Financial Products that take the steps much further. They are essentially changing the concept of capital and liquidity of assets beyond the traditional boundary. Not just moving from physical currency to virtual mediums, but we now include all kinds of novel assets as new types of exchanging mediums, and standardize them, treat them like "money" and further the capital flow (although in the process creating many financial crisis). I feel this might be a interesting way of visioning new mechanics, since we are not just simulating past and known financial mechanics, but possibly future financial institutions since the game could run for hundreds of years into the future, only if we could capture the underlying essence of finances. It's not about how fancy or complicated they can be, but building blocks like what counts as mediums and what channels do they flow through.
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acf1
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Re: Financial DLC

Post by acf1 »

David wrote:
My concern is that some users will find this tedious after the novelty of this new feature wears off, due to its repetitive nature that requires constant user interactions.
Yeah, that was just off top of my head, I agree in can be tedious for the player, but survival of your bank can be the incentive.
But from my own experience, I can make way more money by trading stock on my own than running a mutual fund and collecting annual fees. Also it has been proven that the majority of mutual funds fail to beat the stock indexes, so it seems that the success of a mutual fund can be attributed more to luck than skills. From this viewpoint, it may not be much fun running a mutual fund in the game.

Having this said, we do welcome all kinds of suggestions here including yours. In fact, we would like to consider user suggestions for the next DLC project after the completion of the Digital Age DLC. So feel free to continue to post your ideas. For the good ones, we will create polls to seek feedback of other users and hopefully some of them will eventually get implemented in a new DLC.
I think I may have not explain myself well. Yes, you personally, as do I, invest directly in stocks, and I personally hate investing in mutual funds, with the exception of index funds. Regardless, that is a still big market, at least here in the US for people who don't want to micromanage their investments. However, when it comes to the game, you and I (in real life) are the AI, not the player, so what we prefer in real life is moot. The player operates investment bank and produces of the mutual fund (or any other financial product), and will collect the maintenance/management fees from the AI. To keep the AI interested in funding your fund, or from withdrawing funds and switching to a different fund, the investment bank (the player) need to keep a good return on equity by investing in individual stocks, no different that a corporation (player) that plays the game solely in the stock market portion of the game. The key difference, the money used doesn't belong to the player, belongs to the AI.

Anyways, just some thoughts off top of my head. If this gets serious I may get the gears churning, lol.
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